1. Field of the Invention
Various aspects of the present invention relate to an apparatus and method for protecting a drive shaft of a vehicle, and more particularly to a technology for variably reducing engine torque in consideration of a steering angle so as to employ maximum torque optimized for drive shaft characteristics.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, a steering wheel, a steering gear box, a step bar, a knuckle, a lower arm, and wheels are mounted on a chassis device through a connection device. A drive shaft, which is connected with a bendable joint to transfer output signals of an engine and a transmission, interlocks with the transmission and the chassis device.
The drive shaft is a device for transferring power generated from a powertrain to wheels, joints are respectively provided at a transmission and wheels, and a ball joint is mounted to the wheels so that power transmission can be achieved by reflecting a bending angle for steering into the wheels.
As a result, when the drive shaft is broken or damaged, it is impossible to transmit driving force to wheels, so that a powertrain may be broken or damaged.
In case of using a conventional vehicle, under the condition that a reverse gear is selected, if a steering angle is higher than a predetermined steering angle or if an engine Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) is higher than a predetermined RPM, the conventional vehicle is designed to reduce engine torque using the predetermined values.
However, the conventional vehicle is designed to uniformly reduce torque on the basis of a specific condition having the highest steering angle. Therefore, much more torque is reduced than necessary reference torque until protection logic is released. Therefore, if insufficient torque occurs in an uphill (ascent) parking condition of the reverse (R)-gear mode, vehicle gradability may be deteriorated, i.e., a vehicle may fail to park on the uphill road at the R-gear mode.
In addition, the conventional vehicle does not have torque calculation logics. Thus, although vehicles have the same model and the same engine, if the vehicles have different gear ratios, the vehicles must be re-tested to reconfigure the amount of engine torque reduction, so that serious losses may occur during production task.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.